]]>By: zackozhttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/09/16/bee-epigenetics-nurses-foragers-reversible/#comment-15982
Mon, 17 Sep 2012 01:56:10 +0000http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/?p=7653#comment-15982“Next, Florian Wolschin, a postdoc in Amdam’s lab, removed all the nurses from the team’s hives while the foragers were away.”

Written down like that, it sounds casually easy; but I can’t help admiring researchers who do things like this for a living.

]]>By: James V. Kohlhttp://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2012/09/16/bee-epigenetics-nurses-foragers-reversible/#comment-15981
Sun, 16 Sep 2012 23:10:50 +0000http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/?p=7653#comment-15981I used the honeybee model organism to exemplify how the molecular biology common to all species links the epigenetic effects of nutrient chemicals and pheromones to DNA methylation so that others might better be able to grasp the species-wide genomic complexity that starts with microbes.

From Kohl (2012): “The honeybee already serves as a model organism for studying human immunity, disease resistance, allergic reaction, circadian rhythms, antibiotic resistance, the development of the brain and behavior, mental health, longevity, and diseases of the X chromosome (Honeybee Genome Sequencing Consortium, 2006). Included among these different aspects of eusocial species survival are learning and memory, as well as conditioned responses to sensory stimuli (Maleszka, 2008; Menzel, 1983).”

Sumner says: “This paper is the first step in exposing the mechanisms [of that plasticity] and making them possible to study.”